Voltron

I love this pic of Christo from the NYT obit.

I can confirm that this works very well. 😁

RIP Larry. 🙁

RIP Jimmy Cobb, last surviving member of the Kind of Blue session. We saw him play a few times, including a Kind of Blue anniversary show a few years ago. He was still drumming pretty strong then, even in his 80s. I also met him after an SFJAZZ show in 2011, and he was a gracious man. I hope they get the band back together on the other side. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/25/845814061/jimmy-cobb-the-pulse-of-kind-of-blue-dies-at-91

At least you won't have far to go when you fall off of it.

Have a birthday fit for the eighth tallest Mexican! Cheers!

Happy birthday @raffy! I hope you have a chill day and drink some good beer. Cheers!

Happy 50th Rob! Sorry we can't all get together and party to celebrate your half century. Have a good one anyway. Cheers!

RIP Ken Osmond, aka Eddie Haskell.

That's some high praise from Dr. Wood, and the rest of you, and I'm flattered. He did more than watch, of course, and working with Steve and with Doug has been a great education. Their different styles and approaches have each had an influence and I've tried to meld them into a hybrid. I wish I hadn't mentioned the lack of "perfection" because it definitely got overblown. I am extremely happy with the results, including the things that were challenging and didn't come out perfectly in line with the picture in my head. And as far as setting up a shop, the first order of business is a motion sensor that starts music playing as soon as we walk in to keep Steve's a cappella efforts to the minimum. 🤡

I forgot to mention that my brother in law's painting of Death Valley is a nicely complementary backdrop for the chest.

This morning I put the final touch on the silverware chest that Steve and I have been building by installing the insert that holds our silverware set. I bought it from Rockler and designed the chest around it. I'm proud of the chest and think it is beautiful even though it is not completely perfect in every way, and I certainly never could have done it without Steve. We made the chest from a single large board of jatoba wood and it turned out to have some twists and warps that were a bear to manage. Also, it has high mitered corners and my design idea was to wrap the grain from the left side, across the front and continue onto the right side. The lid is also mostly a single piece with sides formed by the sides of the box and an ebony border around the insert. It was by far the most complicated thing I have ever attempted and Steve claims the same for himself. I am going to post a bunch of pictures of the finished product, but not the blow by blow building shots as I did with the dining table from last month. I don't want to bore everyone and I don't have many photos anyway. The only two parts that I am going to highlight are the lid and the horizontal routing we did to make an ebony inlay on the edge of the drawer opening (which covered a mistake we made earlier). The lid piece was too big for my router so I had to build a router sled and route it that way. The first pic shows the setup with a dummy board, the second the jatoba board while being routed, and the third pic down shows the board after routing and a first sanding. It was a cool exercise. The horizontal routing was done on the router table Steve and I built, which can be tipped 90 degrees so that the bit extends outward horizontally, duh, and allows for tenons to be cut precisely. It worked great to make a slot for the ebony insert that is exposed when the drawer is pulled out. Lastly, here is the box when we glued it up with the lid still part of the box. Steve's plan all along was to build it this way and then cut off the lid an inch down from the top so that it would fit together with the box perfectly. It worked to an extent, but the twists and warps in the wood made it much more difficult to accomplish and not quite "perfect." So, the rest of the pics are just the chest in some detail to show the continuous grain wrapping around the three sides, and the ebony accents and the handles that we made from ebony as well. It was anxiety inducing and I definitely lost sleep along the way (covid is to blame as well), but the results are pretty fabulous imho.

Plus one for linseed oil soap. Just used some today and it will not leave residue like mineral oil. Oh, and I should say that I came across linseed oil soap because Doug recommended some other linseed oil products for a project awhile back. Linseed oil wax is also very nice, if you want to give the wooden cups some new life. 🙂

Hope it's been a good one, Chris! Cheers!

RIP Fred. Loved him in so many things but this always comes to mind first.

Last night we made pizza with mozzarella, parmesan, scallion, garlic hot peppers, pancetta and egg. Tonight, I made this recipe and really enjoyed it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/magazine/punjabi-red-beans-recipe.html

RIP Roy and Little Richard. And now RIP Jerry Stiller at 92 of natural causes. I liked Stiller and Meara as a kid and loved him as George's dad. Another reason it will be a sad Festivus this year.

Happy birthday Shel! So glad you get to shelter in place with the woman you love. Cheers!

http://www.blazngrillworks.com/controller That's the one, Shel. Easy to swap out on the Traeger.

I've lived through this particular hell, and homicide is never far from one's thoughts.

Fuck the fuck out of cancer! Fuck! RIP Florian 😢

Taco Tuesday Steako de Mayo!

I am lazy and like easy solutions, so pellets are the only way to go for me. I've been using the same Traeger I bought many MOAs ago but replaced the PID for a much better one after going to Naaman's in Austin. So much more control of the temp, especially for low and slow smokes.

Hope it was a good birthday under strange circumstances Manuel! Cheers!

Rice is a 22 minute proposition. You boil twice the amount of water as rice in two minutes or so, add the rice, cover the pot and turn down the heat to low, set the timer for 20 minutes, leave it covered, and after 20 minutes turn off the heat. At that point, you can eat it or it will sit happily in the covered pot for another 30 or more minutes without much change in heat or moisture.